R.O.H.A.N. Online, whose title stands for "Renaissance Of Human And Nature," is a free Korean/Japanese MMORPG that has been made available to international users, and which, contrary to what you would expect from the name, has nothing to do with Lord of the Rings. Its storyline involves a battle against the gods of the Celestial Castle of Rakhon who are out to destroy the world, but many players prefer the Player Versus Player aspect of the game, including the "vengeance" system which allows players who were PKed to teleport to their killer's location for a shot at payback.

There are seven races/classes so far in the game:

Humans: Humans are the primary melee warriors of the game. They are good at tanking and DPS, and are one of the few classes who can dual-wield, though with weapon and dagger rather than true dual-wielding. They usually wield swords, though humans going for a more tanking role will use maces or axes with a good shield.

Elves: One of the two primary magic-using races of the game, Elves mainly focus on either healing and buffing, or more offensive magic if they're going for the Templar class. They wield wands or staffs, and have the option of using a shield with the former.

Half-Elves: Half-Elves are excellent ranged attackers, using bows and crossbows to rain death on enemies from long distance.

Dark Elves: Dark Elves are more offensively oriented than their Elven counterparts, and are good at AOE damage. They use the same weapons as Elves, but unlike their Elven counterparts, they cannot use a shield.

Dhans: Dhans are the ninjas of Rohan. They're good at big spikes of damage from stealth and serious critical damage. Their unique weapon is a brace of Katars, though daggers and swords are also common.

Dekans: The resident Proud Warrior Race, these dragonlike humanoids are jack-of-all-trades types. They can DPS, they can tank, they can heal single targets, and at more advanced levels, they can turn into a dragon. Their primary weapon is the Zhen, a Double Weapon that can be split into two halves for Dual Wielding.

Giants: The newcomers of the game as of this writing, Giants are another big warrior race that focuses on tanking and DPS. They primarily wield dual swords or polearms.

Dhans and Dekans differ from the other races through the ability to enter "assassination mode," which allows them to PK other players while hiding their identity from them for vengeance purposes (you show up as "Dekan" or "Dhan" in red instead of your regular name). The downsides are that you can't join parties unless they're members of your race in assassination mode, and you are kill-on-sight for the guards of the other towns as well as being able to be attacked by other players as if you were a regular mob without having to hold down Control when choosing a target to attack, just like you would if you were a "murderer" (a player who PKs enough times to have his name show up in red).

Rohan, in addition to that system and the standard MMO-style questing in Player Versus Environment gameplay, also has several unique features:

Forging, which consists of taking two weapons or pieces of armor of different levels and combining them into a better weapon or armor. Forging two standard items together gets you a rare item, and forging two rare items together gets you a unique item. The really crazy among players will try to go for an ancient item, which involves taking a unique item and combining it with an item that gives attribute and weapon bonuses. Success is not assured on a forge attempt, and chance of failure goes up depending on what you're trying to forge and the level of the items in question, and if you fail, you will lose both items. The only way to keep your items on a failed forge attempt is to get a preservation stone, but the only way to get your hands on one is to go on the Exchange Market or Item Mall or try your luck on the Consignment Auctions.

Refining involves taking an item that has a level or attribute higher than what you generally possess and shelling out crones (Rohan's currency) to try to level it down so that you can equip it. Like forging, a successful refine is not assured, and apart from forging, refining is one of the biggest Money Sinks that you will come across short of pets, pet food and mounts.

The Fishing minigame allows you to try to use items that are taking up space in your inventory to try to score better items by catching fish. Your objective is to hit space when the little marker hits the green bar, which is not as easy as it sounds. The quality of the fish you catch and the items you get are dependent upon the quality of the item you're using as bait, the quality of the pole you're using and your timing, not to mention luck.

Tropes featured:

Cast from Hit Points: Dekans have a number of powers that draw on their health. Forefoot Step is a melee attack that uses up 20% of the Dekan's health and deals out damage based on the amount of Hit Points sacrificed (and is best used with tank builds for both damage and survivability). Health To Mana sacrifices health in order to give you more mana for skills, and Health Funnel draws off some of your health in order to heal others or yourself if need be.

Critical Hit Class: Dhan Avengers that focus on Agility and Human Guardians that focus on Dexterity do much of their damage through skills that increase crit damage.

Double Weapon: The game has the Zhen, a dual-bladed sword wielded by the dragonlike Dekan warriors. One of the Dekan's skills is to split the Zhen in two for Dual Wielding.

Dual Wielding: The game has this as a feature of the Human Knight, Dhan Assassin and Dekan Dragon Fighter classes. Human knights can use a one-handed weapon in one hand and a dagger in the other (they have to be moved into the shield slot), but the dagger loses about 80% of its power this way. Dekans can do this with their Zhens, as one of their skills allows them to split the Double Weapon into two swordlike halves for dual-wielding, losing a bit of attack power but increasing attack speed. And the Dhans have a special two-handed weapon which is basically a brace of katars, one in each hand. And the upcoming Giant race is going to have true dual-wielding (a one-handed weapon in each hand) as a feature.

Every 10,000 Points: Rohan Online's M.Kill system (short for Monster Kill) gives you bonus XP for every 20 mobs you kill, with the bonus increasing until you get 100 monster kills, at which point it resets back to 0. You don't get the bonus if you're fighting monsters with their names in grey, which are too weak to give you any XP or item drops.

Giant Spider: Giant spiders are a common enemy in the lower levels, particularly if you're a Dark Elf in Ignis, which is packed with both various species of these and the giant scorpions known as Akepions.

Level-Locked Loot: The game allows players to wear much higher level equipment but imposes stat penalties that may end up making the gear less powerful than what the player is qualified to wear.

Money Sink: Forging and refining weapons and armor is a money sink for many players. Forging entails combining two weapons or pieces of armor into a rare weapon or armor, and you can do the same with two rare weapons or pieces of rare armor to get a unique weapon or armor. Refining involves lowering an attribute or level on a weapon, piece of armor or other item so that you can equip it. Both forging and refining have its problems both of which stem from the fact that success is not assured and the chance for failure increases when you try to forge higher-level stuff, particularly uniques. If you fail at a forge attempt, you lose both items you were using for the attempt (which can be REALLY aggravating if you were trying to combine two good weapons or pieces of armor into a better weapon or piece of armor), and if you fail at a refine attempt, in the case of weapons and armor, the item you were trying to de-level instead goes up by a number of levels equal to what you were trying to lower it by (though never above the level of the original), and if you de-level a given weapon or piece of armor enough and fail on a refine, you can actually destroy it. All this serves to gobble up whatever crones you have, and the only way to save whatever weapons or armor you have on a forge attempt is to get a preservation stone, which can only be obtained in a Consignment Auction for a good amount of crones or in the Item Mall or Exchange Market for real money, and which only protects your items against one failed forge attempt per stone.

In addition, mounts, pets and food for pets are quite frankly the most expensive items you are likely to find in Rohan in general, and are not recommended for anyone below the 30s in regards to level.

Respawn Point: Bindstones act as respawn points for players who die. Each major area in the Rohan setting has its own bindstone, which you can set as your own in order to respawn there after you die.

Shield Bash: A key skill of the human knight and defender, which has the ability to stun an enemy (either a mob in PVE or a human opponent in PVP), costing him several seconds worth of attacks.

Twenty Bear Asses: The "Understanding M.Kill" quest, one of your very first quests has you collecting pairs of front paws off the Vargs and Greymane Vargs around the bindstone. And that's just the start — you'll be asked to collect fangs off Fanged Hellhounds, Animal Hides off Slavering Vargs, branches off Drys Ancients, Tough Black Hides off Lycans, and various others, in addition to your standard "Kill X (monster)s then return to me" quests.

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